


The Blade's Edge

by StarWitness42



Category: Original Work
Genre: Hockey story, M/M, Mental Illness, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-03 09:53:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11529804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarWitness42/pseuds/StarWitness42
Summary: Cam has spent his entire life working towards one thing: Getting to the majors. He's finally made it, but starting over in a new city isn't his idea of a good time. Add in a slightly dysfunctional host family, a captain who might be completely off his rocker, and the coach's son that he literally cannot stop thinking about, and he's not entirely sure how this season is going to go. At this point, all he can hope for is survival.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laelipoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laelipoo/gifts).



> This is actually an original work I've just started. I decided to post it here, though, in case anyone was interested (and also in the hopes of it getting me to keep working on it). It sort of mixes all of the things I love right now - Stick!Malec, Evak and Zude in particular. If those are your cup of tea, come on down.

If Grant were being honest, he’d say the lamp currently hurtling towards his face is not entirely unexpected.

“You dump me in a _text_?”

The words fly at him next, trailing on the sound of thin glass shattering against the wall instead of his skull thanks to some pretty stellar reflexes on his part.

They come from the lips of one Jennifer Ortega. Twenty-three years old. Girlfriend for six months. And rightfully pissed that Grant did, in fact, just dump her via text.

“To be fair,” he says levelly, “I didn’t think your phone would be on at this time of day and I figured I’d be gone before you got home.”

She crosses her arms in the international sign of I Would So Kill You Right Now If It Were Even Remotely Legal.

“Fair to who?”

That, right there, is a damn fine question. One that actually makes him squirm when he answers it, his hands shoved in the pockets of his worn-out jeans as his eyes flick to a spot just shy of her face.

“Well, to me.” He pauses, hesitates, then adds, “And maybe the lamp.” Because it might have been a cheap ass piece of IKEA trash, but it didn’t deserve to go out like that.

RIP shitty desk lamp. You served them well, keeping them both from going night blind as they ate takeout on the couch they got at a garage sale for fifty bucks when they moved into this dump. 

“You’re the one who wanted to live together,” she says, seemingly plucking the strand right from Grant’s thought. “You’re the one who swore that two months together was long enough to take this step. You-”

She stops there to no doubt ponder the hundreds of accusations she could fling at him, none of which he'd blame her for. Because as assigning fault goes, every last bit of it belongs on his shoulders.

“Why?” she asks. But since it’s unclear what she’s referring to - Why did he ask her to move in with him? Why is he breaking up with her? Why is the fucking sky blue? - he just shrugs his shoulders in response.

You can’t piss off someone that already wants to murder you, right? The illegal ending of another life is pretty much the butt end of pissed offedness as far as he knows.

As if to prove him wrong, Jennifer’s already dark eyes shift a shade closer to black right before she calls him either a goat fucker or a pig fucker in Spanish, he’s unsure of the translation. Not that it matters, of course, as she continues berating him in a language he only has a passable understanding of, thanks to its proximity to French.

That’s his cue to zone out. The Spanish yelling is for her benefit, not his. A way to vent her frustrations without having to steal his asshole crown.

Unsurprisingly, they’ve done this before. So he knows full well that she’ll switch back to English when she wants him to pay attention again. In the meantime, he lets his thought drift to whether or not he’ll need more than a carry-on bag for his things.

It might be sad to some people, knowing that you can fit your entire life into one moderately-sized, airplane friendly bag. But it’s been a long time since Grant’s given any type of fuck about his vagabond ways and so he just keeps mentally planning how best to pack.

“Huh?” he asks when he realizes she’s back to English.

“I said you’re a coward.”

He can’t argue there. While it might not be a word he’d choose to describe himself, he’s never once broken up with anyone in person, preferring instead to sneak off like a thief in the night. So, from her perspective, it makes complete sense.

It’s why he says, “I thought that was pretty obvious, what with the text and all,” because his motto has always been: When in doubt, self-deprecate! It tends to cut the legs out from under someone who wants to beat you senseless with your own ripped off limbs if you agree with them.

Jennifer sputters a little, and Grant tries his best not to smirk. His little foray into distraction only seems to increase her ire, though, judging by her switch back into The Land of Spanish. And this time both his mind and his eyes drift to the tattoo rising up her neck.

It’s a dragon, designed by her but inked by another artist because even she’s not dexterous enough to tattoo her own neck. It’s beautiful, though, colorful and practically visceral, with scales that shimmer when she sweats. But he’s seeing it differently for the first time ever right now.

In the past, he always thought it looked like the dragon was trying to swallow her head. But now, he gets it.

She is the fire coming out of its mouth.

It’s an excellent bit of symbolism, something he’d tell her if she weren’t no doubt ripping him a new one.

“You hold yourself in like… like State secrets,” she says as he picks up on the switchback easily this time. “You’re scared shitless that someone will see you, the _real_ you, and so you just bail before they have a chance to.”

“What are you, my therapist?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and cocking his head in a way he’s sure looks non-fucking-plussed.

“That’s funny, because I was just gonna suggest that you get one.”

Okay, that one stung a little. 

“You’re forgetting how we met,” she continues, which is something that is not actually possible. A fact he tells himself she knows as he uncrosses his arms so he can look at the tattoos covering both of them. Designs that Jennifer created for him the night they met.

He’s not looking at the ink, though. Not really. He’s looking through it, down to the reason he got them in the first place as he does his best to resist the almost supernatural urge he has to scratch.

“You can throw all the pills you want at the ghosts,” she says, her voice lower now, tamer, which is so much worse.

He’d take anger over pity any damn day of the week.

“That won’t get them to go away. And you can’t… you can’t run from them forever, Grant.”

He doesn’t look up as she walks out the door - out _their_ door. Doesn’t even move for a minute at least, staring dumbly at his arms like he’s a freaking statue before he realizes he has packing to do and gets to work. Her words still stick with him, though, playing over and over again on a seemingly endless loop until he can't stand the echoes in the silence for one second longer.

It’s probably a mistake to call Noah. If he’s looking for comfort and compassion, he should call… well, a hotline or something. 1-800-WE-CARE or some lame ass shit like that. Because of the few friends he’s got, none of them are of the Free Pass variety.

Noah has been his go-to for half a decade now, though, one of the only people he hasn’t managed to get rid of like the possessions he sheds every time he moves. And so if it’s a choice between the camp fire round of Jennifer’s accusations and the obnoxious ribbing of Noah, he’ll take the latter.

He checks the time before he hits send, trying to gauge if he’ll get a voice or a voicemail. The season hasn’t started yet, so he knows Noah won’t be at the rink. But eleven pm New York time means eight o’clock in Seattle, and there are any number of things - or people - Noah could be doing at this time on a Saturday night.

It only takes two rings before he gets his answer.

“Hello, Donna’s House of Pancakes,” Noah says easily, his accent tripping softly over the words because no matter how many years he spends away from Montreal, he’ll never sound anything other than French.

He thinks it helps him get chicks, but Grant just thinks it makes him sound pretentious.

“Hey, asshole,” Grant replies as he sinks down onto his mattress, catching a whiff of Jennifer’s perfume as he falls backwards into their pillows.

There’s a slight wrench in his gut, but it’s nowhere near enough to get him to change his mind.

“Je suis désolé, there is no Asshole here. There used to be. I think he went by the name of Grant Rosen. But he fucked off years ago.”

“Hardy fucking har,” Grant groans, sliding the pillow over his face briefly to catch one final sniff of a person he maybe could have loved someday if he thought that emotion was even remotely possible with him.

There’s silence on the line as Noah decides how he wants to play this, opting for sincere in the end when he asks, point blank, “What happened?”

Grant has long since lost count of the number of times they’ve had this exact conversation.

“Why do you think something happened?” he asks, playing along.

“When was the last time you just called to chat?”

He can hear Noah settling in now, can imagine him pressed into the corner of his ridiculous black couch, long legs that look more like tree trunks than anything stretched along the length of fine Italian leather.

“I’m coming home,” he replies, answering the question Noah was _really_ asking. And the pause this time is enough to make Grant itch.

“Kicked out?” he asks eventually.

“Fuck you, it’s voluntary.”

Noah _hmms_ before asking, “Then why?”

Grant toys with lying, but what would be the point? If he really is going home this time, Noah will nag the truth out of him eventually anyway. Why not rip the Band-Aid off now?

“I can’t do another semester here,” he says. “It’s been making me spin all summer just thinking about it.”

He sounds miserable, which is the last thing he wants right now. But he’s tired, more so than he’s been in a long time, and so he just doesn’t have the energy to pretend.

“You seemed fine when I came to visit for your twenty-first,” Noah supplies. And Grant wants to say, _yeah, but that was two months ago, a lot can go wrong in two months_.

What he says instead, though, is, “Yeah, well, that was before classes started. I can’t do it, Noah. It’s just not me.”

“What is you, then?”

“Ha, ha,” Grant replies, but the tone of Noah’s voice is more concerned than it’s been all conversation when he says, “It wasn’t a joke, dickhead.”

“This is your third school in as many years,” he continues as if he’s somehow morphed into Grant’s father. “And that’s not even counting the gap year you took to raise pygmy goats in Africa or whatever.”

“I was helping build schools, jackass,” Grant spits back.

“Whatever. Try and convince me you didn’t just pick that one to piss your dad off. Go on, I dare you. Sell your altruistic bullshit to someone that doesn’t know you better.”

Something jars inside of Grant at Noah’s words, a feeling not unlike getting punched in the gut. And it’s not like he was expecting warmth and sugar or any crap like that. Noah’s the longest friendship he’s managed to keep in his entire life, which means he’s seen Grant at his best and worst enough to know the difference. But he wasn’t expecting a freaking lecture either.

“Look, I’m coming home and I thought I’d give you a head’s up. If you want to be a prick about it, then we can just leave it at that. I’ve got packing to do anyway.”

“Wait,” Noah bites out before Grant can hang up on him. And judging by the near desperate tone of his voice, Grant has a hunch the conversation is about to turn in a friendlier direction.

“You can stay with me if you want.”

Grant snorts. “Hell no.”

“Why not?” Noah replies, doing a piss poor job of hiding the hurt in his voice.

“I don’t think living with you and your endless parade of loose women would be good for me right now. I need to be somewhere that I won’t have to think about the sex I’m not having.”

“You know you no longer have a bed, right?” Noah asks, referring to the one at his dad’s house that’s recently been lent out to the team’s new star rookie.

As coach of the Seattle Saints, this isn’t the first time Grant’s dad has invited a new player to stay with them. That’s how he met Noah, in fact, when he was sixteen and Noah was just a pimpled, eighteen-year-old, hockey playing dick. And now, the merry-go-round has started again.

“Yeah, Molls has been texting me daily updates on her ‘new brother,’” Grant says. “Fucking traitor.”

“She just misses you.”

“I know,” Grant replies as he puts his free hand beneath his head, digging his fingers into thick, dark hair. “Still doesn’t make me feel any better. Did you hear the kid can cook? He’s fucking nineteen years old. Where the hell did he learn to cook?”

“Well certainly not on the back of a cereal box like you.”

“You really are a fucking comedian,” Grant says, letting the silence after his words fill up the air until he’s about ready to burst from it.

“How is the kid, really?” he asks, because it’s Band-Aids all around tonight.

“You mean is the kid a good enough distraction to keep your dad from wanting to pick a fight the second he sees your ugly face on his doorstep?”

Grant bites his lip and waits.

“The kid is good, which means your dad is good too. Happy. Excited. Keeps talking about this being ‘our year,’ that Hauser is the missing piece we’ve been waiting for, bullshit like that. So you should be good, even if you don’t have a bed.”

“I’ve slept in worse places,” he says quietly as his thought trails off to the pull-out couch in the basement of the house he lived in for ten years before he was old enough to bolt from it.

 _It’s just a place to regroup_ , he assures himself. _You’re just going back to get your legs and then you’re gone again_. But for some reason, the words feel hollow this time.

“Speaking of, I take it this means you’ve ditched whoever it was that lived in that dump with you? The mysterious significant other you wouldn’t let me meet? Heather, was it?”

“That was at the last school.”

“Justin?”

“He was in L.A.”

“Carly?”

“It’s Jennifer, ass wipe.”

“Rude. How the hell am I supposed to keep all of this straight? Who is Jennifer again? The stripper?”

Grant groans. “She’s a tattoo artist. I’ve never dated a stripper.”

“Shame. Strippers give the best-”

“ _Stop_ ,” Grant hisses, prompting Noah to laugh deeply.

“I was gonna say back rubs.”

“No you weren’t.”

He sighs. “No, I really wasn’t.”

For a minute, they’re both laughing like old times. But because Grant’s luck is the pile of shit that it is, Noah takes the opening to swing around to a topic he knows Grant dreads.

“How are you doing?” he asks. “Really?”

“I’m fine,” Grant bites out through gritted teeth as his grip on his phone tightens with the shift.

“Are you still taking your meds?”

“Yes, mom, I’m still taking my meds.”

He feels a stab in his gut at the word _mom_ , a pain that still hasn’t gone away over a decade later. But he shoves it aside as soon as he notices it and says, “I’m fine, _really_ ,” because he is.

“This isn't about that,” he adds after a few beats of excruciating silence. “New York just wasn’t the right fit, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll find it,” Noah sighs. “In the meantime, I’ll be glad to have you back in town to corrupt.”

Grant laughs again, low and dark, and says, “When have I ever needed you to corrupt me?”

“Good point,” Noah replies, and with that, the conversation is over.

With that, Grant is officially going home.   


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone that's coming along for this ride! I hope you all enjoy it!

If there’s one thing Cameron Hauser excels at, it’s being prepared. It’s part of the reason why he’s such a good hockey player, because he learned early on that if you’ve done your research thoroughly enough, you can assure that you are ready for whatever comes your way.

It’s not just hockey either. Cam researches everything and everyone he comes into contact with, from teammates to host families, all for the sheer necessity of _knowing -_ what to expect, how to react, _who to be_. His livelihood depends on it. Which is why, merely three weeks into his stay in Seattle, he’d count himself an expert on all things Saints.

Most of his studying was done over the course of the summer, before he even got here. Filling up files on his phone that may or may not be eating up most of his memory because this isn’t the type of thing one puts on the cloud.

His last home was an old Victorian one outside Vancouver that the Saints’ minor league affiliate bought as a halfway house for players going up and down between the various levels of professional play. There were five other teammates living there when he arrived, seven when he left, and Cam wants to make darn sure that he never has to go back there again. Not just because he wants to stay in the majors for the long haul, but because it smelled badly of feet and flatulence, two things he thankfully hasn’t had to experience in his new home.

He’s with a family this time, his coach’s family to be precise. And it’s a weird experience, living with a host like this again. He hasn’t done it since he was fifteen, before life became a series of boarding schools and group homes. But he has to say, staying with Coach Rosen and his daughter Molly has so far been a delight.

There’s a third member of the family that’s MIA, a son named Grant. Cam’s research on him brought up very little outside a promising hockey career cut tragically short at age sixteen due to a lung condition. Which is why he’d been forced to adjust his hazy mental picture when he moved into Grant’s room.

The first thing he noticed were the black and white photographs littering the wall, some of them mixed with charcoal drawings more lifelike than the pictures themselves. There was a dark room where the walk-in closet should be and poetry scrawled on the ceiling in pencil so thin it had taken Cam three days to notice it was there, and another two to get up the nerve to find a step ladder tall enough to read it.

Where he’d once been picturing an athlete much like himself, with the dirty blond hair and freckled face of his sister Molly, he now imagines a thin, frail artist with a quiet demeanor and romantic sensibility. Someone that looks like Victor from _The Corpse Bride_ , has a habit of trailing off mid-sentence and reads Voltaire on a daily basis.

It had been an adjustment, but Cam is used to adjustments. Something he is proving on the ice today as Coach runs them through drills designed specifically to force them to be on their toes.

He switches the lines every shift, yelling out random number combinations, sometimes having three right wingers on the same line struggling to find their positions in the plays he’s also spouting off without rhyme or reason. And Cam knows why he’s doing this. Their first preseason game is tomorrow, which means the final rounds of cuts are coming in the next week. But Cam is so sharp today there’s no way he’ll be taking a bus back to Vancouver next Friday.

They will have to pry him away from this team with a crowbar and the jaws of life.

When Coach calls for a fifteen-minute break, most of the team heads for the bench to collapse and hydrate. Ever the polite one, though, Cam holds back. Which is why he’s standing next to their also polite captain when he shrieks the word, “Fuck!” like it has a half dozen syllables instead of just the one.

“Hold my stick,” Noah adds, shoving said stick into Cam’s chest before speeding across the ice, making a b-line for the door in the corner generally used by the ice crew during TV time outs.

There’s somebody standing there. Or two somebodies, technically. But Cam only knows one of them - Gerald, the head of the training staff. The other person is unknown to him, and is also Noah’s target, as proven by the way he literally tackles the newcomer to the ice.

It’s… strange. And intriguing, the way the guy that had been talking to Gerald is there one second and gone the next, buried beneath the six foot, two-inch frame of one Noah Lemaire. And it makes Cam curious enough to ask.

“Who is the guy that Cap is…  um,” he starts, turning to the nearest player, their starting goaltender Jonas, whose pads currently make him look about four times his actual size.

Jonas smiles and asks, “Mauling?” Because that’s really the only word for what Noah is doing. “That’s Grant. Coach’s son.”

His first thought is _I hope Noah didn’t just break all the bones in Grant’s body_. Then he remembers the brief view he’d had of Grant. From what he can recall - which is admittedly very little - he didn’t look quite as frail as Cam had expected. He was just tackled, though, and he still has Noah on top of him, pinning him bodily to the ice. But nobody else seems to be bothered by this particular display and so Cam takes his now two sticks and skates over to the corner alone for a closer look.

“I just got off a fucking plane,” a voice that is not Noah’s comes from the pile. “Stop humping me, you damn hose beast.”

At the request, Noah seems to wrap his arms tighter around the body beneath him. “My baby is home!” he squeals. “I’m never letting you go!”

“Jesus fuck you’re worse than Mushy,” Grant hisses, and Cam has a slight flicker of understanding flash through his head.

He knows who Mushy is. Mushy is the charcoal gray pit bull that had warmed up to Cam his first night in town. The one that literally eats out of his hand and curls up in bed with him at night because Cam is not only good with people, but with animals as well.

Everyone has an angle, even a dog. All you have to do is find it and press.

“If you don’t get the fuck off of me, I’m gonna knee you in the nuts so hard you’ll go temporarily blind.”

“I’ve got on a cup,” Noah says proudly.

“And I’m really good at kneeing people in the junk. _Get. The. Fuck. Off_.”

The word _off_ comes out as a groan as Grant finally succeeds in pushing Noah off of him. But once he does, everything inside of Cam completely freezes like the ice he’s standing on.

All he can think at first is _freckles_. He was right about Grant sharing that particular genetic trait with his sister, but on him - with his dark, not blond, hair, even darker eyes, and sharp cheekbones - the smattering of grayed out freckles across his cheeks and forehead looks… arresting.

As far as the rest of him?

Grant sits up on the ice, stretching out long, toned legs wrapped in faded black, skin tight denim. Running a hand through thick hair that’s shorter on the sides, longer on top, pushing it back as the ice shavings on his fingers fleck in the strands. And then… then he smiles.

It’s not a cheery smile. Cam can’t even really describe it, in fact, though the words _shit eating grin_ do spring to mind. It’s a smirk more than anything, half a smile and crooked as he leans back onto his elbows, tips his head at Cam and says, “So you’re the guy that’s sleeping in my bed.”

There is a good chance that Cam stops breathing at that. Because he’s known he was gay pretty much his entire conscious life, but he’s never been so utterly sure of it than at this very moment.

This is not at all how he pictured Grant Rosen.

“Uh,” Cam says, which is about as articulate of a response as he can manage. But thankfully Grant doesn’t seem to notice his complete lack of the ability to speak as he turns his attention back to Noah and snaps out a quick, bitter, “Help me up, fuck wad.”

Noah does help him up. Noah also helps him dust the ice shavings off his ass, which prompts Grant to shove him so hard he almost topples over. Noah just laughs, though, causing the crooked smile to slip back across Grant’s lips. And Cam is not entirely sure what’s going on here, but judging by the warm feeling in his gut, a part of him likes it.

_Brothers_ , he thinks. Maybe this is what it’s like to have a sibling.

“I’m Grant,” he says once he’s done dusting off his burgundy hoodie. When he puts his hand out, though, all Cam does is look helplessly down at the two sticks still clutched in his fists.

Grant laughs at that before taking one of the sticks so they can properly shake hands. And Cam is proud that he can at least get his name out right now, that’s how ridiculously attractive Grant is.

He was supposed to be pale. Gangly. Blond and weak. Not wearing the finely toned muscles of a runner as he leans down to pick up the cigarette that had been tucked behind his ear like he just fell out of a modern-day adaptation of _Grease._

“About the bed,” Cam starts to say as his mind flashes back to Grant’s earlier comment, from back when he was splayed across the ice. “I can find-”

Grant holds up a hand to cut him off before leaning on the butt of the stick. “Naw man, it’s cool. I’m not gonna be here that long anyway.”

“Like hell you aren’t,” Noah butts in as a sinking feeling replaces the warmth in Cam’s gut. Which is odd, given that he doesn’t even know this person, so why should he care if he leaves? The feeling is there, though, as Grant shoves Noah, says a quick, “The fuck I am,” and turns back to Cam.

“Just don’t… I don’t know, eat all the Frosted Flakes or some shit and we’ll be fine.”

Noah elbows Grant in the ribs. “I thought you liked Fruity Pebbles?”

Grant rolls his eyes heavily, in an exaggerated fashion. “Real fucking laugh riot, you are. If you ever have to leave hockey, I think you have a real shot at a career as a standup comedian.”

“You know you love me,” Noah says, and he actually leans in and kisses Grant on the cheek at that. Something that makes Cam’s mind fritz and Grant’s hands rise to shove Noah’s still puckered lips away from him.

“Why are you here anyway?” Noah asks through renewed laughter as he picks up the stick Grant had dropped in the kiss fiasco.

“You mean at the rink?”

“Oui.”

He bites his lower lip and sighs. “Dad changed the locks. Said if I wanted back in the house, I had to come have a talk with him first.”

Grant air quotes the last bit of his statement, something that Cam thinks he might understand on a fundamental level. But before he can think any deeper about questionable parenting, Noah is saying, “I told you that you could stay with me.”

Grant snorts. “And I told you I’m not living in the den of heathens. The last thing I want is to have to worry about waking up to you on the edge of my bed watching me sleep.”

“Oh, but you’re so adorable when you sleep!” He pinches Grant’s cheek. “You can’t blame me for liking you best when you’re not speaking.”

Grant opens his mouth to respond, but his no doubt biting retort is crushed by the addition of Coach Rosen to the group.

“We’re about to resume practice,” he says coldly, which is odd given how warm he’s seemed in the past three weeks. “You can wait in my office if this is too boring for you.”

“Actually, Coach,” Noah says as he leans in and puts his arm around Grant’s shoulders. “Grant here said he wanted to stay and watch. He was just talking about how excited he is about our chances this year.”

The smoothness of both Noah’s gesture and his words indicates that he’s done this before, put himself between Grant and his father. And the stiffness of Grant’s body indicates that he’s not a huge fan of the arrangement.

He goes with it, though. Smiles something bitter as the words, “Yeah, should be fun,” practically drip disdainfully from his mouth. And the way Coach Rosen scoffs at that suggests that they’ve done this before as well.

Cam really needs to do more research ASAP.

Grant watches the entire practice, something that Cam knows because he spends far too much time watching Grant out of the corner of his eye. He can’t seem to help it, though. He’s spent essentially his entire life shoving down the urge to be curious about anything outside of expanding his knowledge of the game, but in less than five minutes this random stranger has managed to break through his carefully constructed shell of concentration.

It’s not just that he’s attractive, or that he seems to have a relationship with his father that mirrors the one shared between Cam and both of his parents. It’s something else, something he can’t quite place, and it’s enough to make the back of his neck itch.

While Grant watches the remainder of practice with an intensity that can only be described as spiteful, Cam half watches him with a curiosity that can only be described as unexpected. A fact that doesn’t manage to change how brightly he shines, of course, because if there’s another thing Cam excels at, it’s multi-tasking.

So as he leaves practice an hour or so later, his eyes tracking the way Grant almost slumps off in the direction of his father’s office, there’s only one thought on Cam’s mind:

This season just officially got interesting.


	3. Chapter 3

The sun pours over Grant’s face, making the only bit of exposed skin apart from the hand raising the cigarette to and from his lips tingle with Vitamin D goodness.

He hates the sun. And not just because it makes his freckles stand out like someone with a vendetta took a Sharpie to his body. It’s a personal thing, goes against the entire aesthetic he tries to put forth to the world. Plus, right now it’s making his eyes burn.

Giant, asshole, flaming orb.

This has always been his favorite spot to smoke, crashed out in the shitty old rowboat tied to the dock behind his childhood home, frayed knots just barely holding it in place. He used to hide out here when he was fifteen, sixteen, curled low in the bottom like he thought if he couldn’t see his dad, his dad couldn’t see him. Even though, you know, the smoke was still visible and shit.

He was a teenager. He can’t be blamed if his logic was terrible.

He’s here again, though, killing time until he can pick up his sister from school, taking a quick break outside because he didn’t want to go in and get Mushy all excited only to leave again twenty minutes later. And after his meeting with his dad (he won’t call it anything other than a business meeting), he figured he deserved a smoke.

It reminds him of Jennifer - the warmth of the smoke in his lungs, the coldness of his father’s gaze. They used to smoke on the fire escape together, trying to pick out the random stars that could be caught through the smog. And in this moment he’s hit with the staggering question: Why the hell couldn’t I love her?

On paper, they were perfect for each other. And in reality, she was actually pretty damn great as well. But it’s like there’s this hole inside of him, a gaping chasm where his heart should be, and no amount of forcing in the world can get someone to fill it.

Which isn’t to say he didn’t try. He did. _Hard_. It’s why he proposed the whole living together thing. But regardless of the fact that he finally met someone just as fucked up as he was, their jagged edges never seemed to match up. And so he’s here, hiding in his childhood boat, pretending he’s a teenager and waiting for the world to make sense again.

_Again_. When did it ever make sense in the first place? And that question… well, it does something funny to him. Makes the word _before_ fade into his thought as time slips around him, _away_ from him.

One minute he’s twenty-one, and the next he’s nine again, in a black suit two sizes too big for him, curled in this very same boat while family and friends from all over the country fill his house to spilling. His favorite picture of his mom is clutched in his fist, the one where he was two, maybe three, and she was spinning him in the air, the sunlight he’d grow to hate someday making her hair shine. While inside his house, at least a hundred people were saying sorry in at least a hundred ways except the one that mattered.

The one that would bring her back.

Time slips back again as Grant opens his eyes, lets the sun burn his retinas, causing black spots to fill his vision like he’s trying to erase what he just saw, where he just was. But it’s always there, just beneath the surface, lingering with everything else - a bathtub at sixteen, his father whispering the words “Get out” at eighteen. It’s all just _there_ as he imagines the word _home_ and how he may be here but he’s actually not. Not really.

This isn’t his home anymore. His dad has made that perfectly clear.

Their meeting went about as well as he expected. Which is to say that having his wisdom teeth pulled out again while wide awake would’ve been more fun. In the end, though, he got what he wanted - a key to the house. And all it cost him was a job. The one he was forced to take so he can pay rent, working with the trainers at the rink in a poorly veiled attempt for his dad to keep an eye on him.

He also has to be Molls’ chauffeur to practices and games, given that she’s a terrible driver and a total space cadet when it comes to anything but hockey. Their aunt Lauren had been doing it when their dad was on the road, but it’s getting hard for her with the new baby and all. The one Grant has yet to meet, a fact his father didn’t fail to remind him of. Repeatedly. And so his dad had offered up Grant’s services to cover both of their loads.

That part he doesn’t mind. It’s been too long since he and Molls have had time to properly sibling. And he remembers what it’s like to live through a hockey season. Free time is a luxury more than anything. At least this way they’ll get to see each other. Which reminds him…

He holds the cigarette between his lips and reaches into his pocket for his cell to check the time. If he leaves now, he should beat the final bell by at least ten minutes, which will give him plenty of time to find a good place to casually lean while he waits for his sister to emerge. So he stabs out the cigarette in his tin can ashtray and rolls onto the dock as gracefully as he can manage.

Bellevue is gorgeous, especially this close to the lake, with Seattle sparkling off in the distance across water bluer than he remembers. Everything is tall and green and smells faintly damp in a way that reminds Grant of endless summer. Of _freedom_ , the kind he hasn’t felt in years. And as he makes his way slowly towards his old high school, the memories wash over him again.

They’re better ones this time. Junior year. Senior year. Getting closer to graduation. Playing video games with Noah. Going to practices with Noah. Watching Noah play on TV with Molls and Auntie L. Staying up late in the bedroom he and Noah shared, talking about dumb shit until his eyes burned from exhaustion. Noah, Noah, _Noah._

Everything changed when Noah moved in, like he’d somehow grabbed the tail of the sun and dragged it back into Grant’s life. And though it’s faded over the years, it’s still there, at least a little bit. And Grant knows there’s no way he’ll ever be able to repay Noah for that.

He’d never say the words out loud, because he doesn’t want to sound like some kind of freak, but in a lot of ways Noah saved his life. 

Today, in this life, he’s taking his time, turning a usually ten-minute walk into something longer, more languid. Because after a cross-country flight full of stale air and screaming kids, and an afternoon spent in and out of taxis, he just wants to feel something solid beneath his feet for a while. His black Cons slick on pavement still wet from morning rain, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his hoodie as his eyes lift to the canopy of trees overhead.

Everything is so damn quiet, so still you could hear a pin drop as the cool humidity makes the space around him feel tighter. But where this used to make him claustrophobic, back before the first time he ran away, today it makes him feel different. Safe, almost. Like the way he feels in the boat only bigger, wider.

It’s the kind of shit he wishes he could bottle and take with him for the bad days.

The school looks just the same as it used to, all glass, concrete, and cobblestone. And that’s a comfort too as he hops up on one of the low stone walls around the front courtyard and waits for the bell.

He can still picture every hall, every classroom, every perfect hiding spot for a midday smoke, only Molls is the one ghosting all the spaces now, not him. Except for the smokers’ nooks. He’s pretty sure she’s got no interest in those.

He almost takes out another cigarette and lights up, half because it’s legal now for him to do so, and half because he’s starting to feel a little itchy again, like his skin is pulling tighter over his bones. Noah is the only one he called before he came home, and even though he knows instinctively that Molls will be happy to see him, there’s always at least a touch of doubt he can’t scrub away. The voice in the back of his head that says, _what if this time, she doesn’t want you back?_

It’s bullshit and he knows it. But knowing it and believing it are two totally different things and right now, that distinction is making him want to bolt.

Before he can follow through on the urge, the bell rings, effectively locking him in place. So he just puts on his best _back the fuck off_ look, shoves his hands back into his pockets, and turns into the skid.

He can tell the exact moment she sees him, mostly because she stops mid-step when it happens, leaving her teetering on one leg. Her expression is confused at first, like she thinks maybe she’s hallucinating before Grant plasters on a smile and offers up a quick wave that gets her moving again.

One second Grant is hopping down from his perch and the next Molls is screeching her way across the remainder of the courtyard. A ten-yard dash that ends in her dropping her backpack and launching herself at him like a weaponized projectile, all long limbs and wild hair. And then he’s holding her like a koala, with her arms wrapped around his neck so tight he can’t breathe and her legs wrapped around his waist so tight he can’t move.

“Shit, your legs are strong,” he groans. She’s a goalie like he was, taking full advantage of the Muppet-like limbs inherited from their mom and the quick reflexes swiped from their dad, so her legs need to be strong. But damn if it doesn’t feel like she’s trying to murder him.

“The better to crush you with, my dear,” she says in his ear. And he can hear it even if he can’t see it - the relief, the tears. And it basically makes him feel like the shittiest brother in existence.

He’s looking forward to the day when she no longer lives at home, when he can see her without having to see… other people.

“Seriously, you’re gonna snap my spine,” he says before pressing a kiss into the long, curly blonde mess that is her hair and setting her onto the ground.

Shit, she got taller. And older. Which are two things that often happen to teenagers, but he wasn’t expecting her to look quite so much like their mom. And the sudden realization of that freezes him again.

Molls tucks her hair nervously behind her ears, blinks gigantic, bright blue eyes at him like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. And it makes him feel like an asshole all over again because it’s not her fault she got all the good genes. That she’s the spitting image of a mother she was too young to remember.

“I,” he starts to say, but he doesn’t have anything to go with it. Which is why he’s glad her friends choose that exact moment to interrupt them.

“Um, Molly, who’s this?” a short redhead asks as she hands Molls’ discarded backpack off to her.

The girl bats her eyes at Grant and twirls her hair, which would make him laugh if he weren’t so fucking polite.

“He’s my brother,” she says pointedly. But redhead doesn’t seem to notice the warning in her tone because a second later she’s reaching her hand out to Grant, palm down like the Queen of fucking England.

“Katie,” she says daintily. And because Grant loves to make his sister miserable, he takes Katie’s hand, bends at the waist, and kisses the back of it.

He winks up at Molls when he does it. And fuck, if looks could kill, he’d be six feet under right now.

The two girls flanking Katie go bright red, hiding their giggles behind their hands. And Molls grabs Grant’s wrist so hard he’s surprised it doesn’t break.

“ _Bye_ ,” she hisses as she drags him away from her friends.

“Bye, ladies!” he adds with a blown kiss. And Molls is so going to rip him a new one for this at some point, but it was worth it just to see her squirm.

“You know, Cam didn’t make an ass of himself when he picked me up at school last week,” she says once they’re safely out of earshot of her friends.

“Oooooh,” he coos, “you mean your new favoritest brother in the whole fucking world, Super Cam?”

She turns her head towards him and flashes him the Rosen Brand Crooked Smile of Eating Shit. “Someone sounds jealous.”

He rolls his eyes. Deeply. Refusing to respond to the accusation in any other way because it would be pointless to bother.

Grant doesn’t get jealous. The whole world knows this.

“You know, I’m gonna be hearing about you for the next week at least thanks to that little display of yours back there.”

“Hey,” he says cheerily as he wraps an arm around her neck so he can tug her down into prime noogie range. “I can’t help it if I’m rakishly handsome.”

“Gross,” she says as he rubs his knuckles in her hair. And the easy way she manages to shove him off informs him that it wasn’t just her legs that got stronger since the last time they were together.

He wants to tell her to stop growing up already, but he’s worried it’ll make him sound like a complete tool. Daddy Grant, telling his wittle baby girly to stop getting so biggums.

“I didn't know I'd make it hard for you, coming back,” he says instead as he falls into step beside her. “I could leave, you know. I wouldn't want to be a hassle.”

“Don't you dare,” she says, her voice half lighthearted and half serious, like she actually thinks there’s a chance he wasn’t just being a shit. A suspicion confirmed when she forcibly stops him so she can hug him again.

The hug lasts longer this time, in the privacy of the empty neighborhood they’ve found themselves in, nothing but the wind rustling through the leaves overheard and the sound of their breath as they cling to each other like little kids. And even though they’re both usually the type to nope out of things like this, out of _sharing feelings_ , Grant has the almost irresistible urge to never let her go.

She may not be a part of his everyday life anymore, but she is a part of _him._ And that matters.

He wants to tell her he loves her, but instead he says, “You smell like bleach.”

She untangles herself from his grip. “It’s chlorine. We’re doing swimming in P.E. now. You try and get the smell out of all this hair.”

“You could just shave it all. You’d look pretty bad ass.”

“So would you,” she says as she reaches out to run her fingers through his hair. Once she’s reached her destination, though, she uses her position to thoroughly mess up every single strand she can get to before Grant wrestles her away.

“That’s what I thought,” she adds with a laugh as he tries to meticulously recreate the look he admittedly spends more time on than he probably should. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

Oh, she’s slick, using his hair as a distraction to slip in the _real talk_. Good thing he already had his response prepared.

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

She raises an eyebrow and crosses her arms before fixing him with a glare so sharp it might as well be a switchblade.

“What?” he asks.

“You’re full of shit, that’s what.”

“Hey, language young lady.”

She scoffs. “You should talk.”

“I do. All the time. Without needing to resort to cuss words because they’re vulgar and not befitting a Rosen.”

She rolls her eyes at his blatant lie. “It doesn’t matter anyways. I already know why you didn’t tell me.”

Now it’s his turn to cross his arms. “Okay, smarty pants. Why didn’t I tell you?”

“Because you wanted to be able to force the pilot to turn around if you changed your mind.”

She’s right. And that, coupled with the fact that she can’t even bring herself to look him in the eye when she says it, makes his Shit Meter spike.

“I think that’s considered terrorism these days,” he says because a joke is all he has to offer. He didn’t tell her, or their dad, or aunt Lauren about his imminent return because he wanted to be able to back out if need be, to get off the plane and get right back on another one to anywhere but here. Noah wouldn’t care. Or rather Noah wouldn’t _admit_ that he cared. But anyone else?

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she says in a way that makes his chest tighten. “I hear that terrorists don’t get to go to the country club prisons.”

“I love you.”

The words slip out of his mouth before he can catch them this time. And even though her only verbal response is the word, “Gross,” the soft way she smiles up at him is more than enough to tell him that everything is okay.

That _they’re okay._

The trip home goes even slower than his trip out, which is just fine by him as it gives them plenty of time to catch up. Molls does most of the talking, which is also just fine by him. It’s why by the time they reach their neighborhood, he’s gotten the dirt on pretty much everyone in her life. Except the boys.

She’s seventeen. He knows they’re there. She’s just not giving them up willingly. Which is also _also_ just fine because Grant’s pretty damn good at digging when he wants to be.

“I’ll be taking you to practice now, by the way,” he says as they approach their house.

“You know it’s before school, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That means five a.m.”

Shit damn motherfucker. Their dad is a fucking sadist.

“I can do five a.m.,” he lies, something Molls picks up on quickly judging by her demonic laugh. And Grant is just about to say something smart ass in response when he opens the front door with his newly acquired key and is almost completely knocked over by sixty-five pounds of charcoal grey pit bull.

There is nothing in this world like the unconditional love of a good dog.

He drops to his knees to save Mushy the trouble of finishing the job, loving the admittedly disgusting wash of dog tongue lathering his face. And he’s so wrapped up in the feel of being loved by an animal who treats every step through the front door like you’re coming home from war that he doesn’t register the presence of another person in the room until Molls addresses it.

She whistles first, her voice indicating how impressed she is when she says, “You look nice.”

“Why do you sound surprised?” the newcomer asks. And even if he didn’t already recognize the kid’s voice, he probably could figure that it was Cam Molls was talking to given that no one else lives here but them and their dad. And even Molls isn’t creepy enough to whistle at their father.

“I’m just used to seeing you hanging around here in sweats, that’s all,” she says as Grant finally raises his eyes from the lump of dog love-attacking his face so he can see what Molls is seeing.

He looks different out of his equipment. And though Grant could probably think of a few more creative words to use, Molls was right. He looks… nice. Better than nice, actually, in a pair of jeans so fitted they look custom made, a gray Henley with exactly one button undone, stretched over some pretty impressive muscles for someone his age, and the absolute whitest socks Grant has ever seen in his entire life.

“All my sweats were dirty,” Cam says as he drags a hand back over his dirty blond buzz cut, gray blue eyes that look almost like Mushy’s landing anywhere but on Grant. “Guess it’s time to do some laundry.”

“I can help you with it if you want,” Molls says in a way that irritates Grant. Like an itch, nothing too horrible just yet but _there_. 

“No, it’ll be fine. Your dad just texted, though. Said he was going to be home late. He offered to pick up food but I said I’d cook.”

“Oh goodie!” Molls actually says. The word _goodie_ literally just came out of her mouth like she’s eight years old or some shit. “Can I help you with that?”

Cam flicks his eyes to Grant, and there’s something there too. Another itch. But Cam is looking away before Grant can place it as he stretches his legs out and narrows his gaze at the scene playing out above him.

“Sure, if you want,” Cam replies as a faint flush works its way up his neck, tucking in just behind his ears. And Grant’s Spidey Sense is tingling all over the damn place as he watches something he really hopes he’s not watching and the words _stay away from my sister_ flash through his head.

“Oh, this is Grant, by the way. My annoying older brother.”

Cam looks at him again and smiles this time before ducking his head away like it’s physically impossible for him to look Grant in the eye for more than one second at a time. “Yeah, we already met.”

Though the words were said by Cam, Molls’ question is directed at Grant: “Where?”

He turns to her and smiles so brightly his face hurts. “At the Stadium, during practice.”

Molls’ face sinks at that.

“So you… um… saw dad already?”

Grant nods.

“Was it… are you okay?”

This is not the conversation he wants to have. Ever, if possible, but definitely not here in front of Captain Perfect Jeans. So he says a quick, “Jesus, you’re worse than Noah,” before getting to his feet and adding, “I need to take a piss.”

As he’s walking away from them, Mushy nipping at his ankles, he hears Cam say, “So Mo, how’d the chem test go?”

“Aced it, Ron,” she replies, her answer followed by something that sounds like a high-five. And Grant is glad he’s heading for the first floor guest bathroom because he thinks he might be about to puke.

They have stupid nicknames for each other. Who the fuck do they think they are?

They’re in the kitchen when Grant emerges from the john, and for a second he toys with the idea of joining them. He’d rather glower from a distance, though, like he’s in some old spy movie. And so he plops down on the loveseat, puts his back against the arm, and turns in the direction of the opening to the kitchen.

He can’t hear what they’re saying, but he can see where Cam’s hands are at all times, so it’ll have to do.

When it becomes clear that nobody in the kitchen is going to be giving him food anytime soon, Mushy pads back into the living room, placing his head in Grant’s lap as if in apology.

“Traitor,” he says quietly as he frowns down at his dog. Or the dog he thought was his at least.  

Mushy makes a whining noise that he knows Grant can’t resist, which is why a moment later he’s saying, “Fine, come on up,” in a voice that is only moderately offended.

Mushy is on his lap immediately, starting the fast countdown to when his presence will put Grant’s legs completely to sleep. And as he’s sitting there glaring, absently rubbing behind Mushy’s ears, it strikes him how very much like a cheesy super villain he must look right now.

That would make Cam the superhero of this particular B movie. And the thought, _he’d probably look good in tights_ flashes across Grant’s brain before he can catch it.

What?

He’s thinking about that, or rather trying _not_ to think about that when he hears the front door open.

For a second, he’s certain it’s his dad, an assumption that makes his whole body lock down. It’s Noah that’s shoving his legs out of the way and plopping down on the loveseat next to him a few seconds later, though, while a very put-out looking Mushy topples to the floor.

“So what, I’m the only one that didn’t get a key?” Grant says bitterly as he lets Mushy back onto his lap, smiling lightly at the way Mushy shoves his ass in the direction of Noah’s face as he settles in.

“You left the door open, dipshit,” Noah says as he leans back into the furniture like he’s trying to become one with it. A habit he brings with him everywhere he goes.

Grant has never, in his life, seen someone that can assimilate into his surroundings as easily and completely as Noah can.

“What are we watching?”

“Nothing,” Grant says in a way that sounds not even adjacent to innocent before he cleverly changes the subject. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Your first night home?” Noah replies as if it should be obvious. “Like I’m gonna let you do that without me. Plus, Molls texted me that the rook was cooking. No way in hell I’m missing that.”

“You too, huh?” he mumbles.

“Me too what?”

“Nothing.”

Noah puts his arm over Grant’s shoulders, a gesture he pretends to hate but one he secretly loves.

It’s nice to know that at least one person in his life will always pick him first.

“C’mon, mon chou, talk to Noah. What’s bothering you?”

He rests his head on Grant’s shoulder at that, a gesture he actually does shrug off before he says, more bitterly than he intends, “Nothing he just… he took my bed, my dog, and now my sister, and I just…”

He pauses for a second, thinking about his next words before asking, “Did you know they have stupid nicknames for each other?”

Noah quirks an eyebrow that translates to either _no, I did not know that_ or _you are being a childish imp._

“Mo and Ron. _Mo-Ron_. Combined their nicknames spell _moron_.”

“I think that’s the point,” Noah supplies, which means the eyebrow quirk was of the imp variety.

And Grant is so annoyed already that he can’t help the way he hisses, “He just better not lay a fucking hand on her, or I’ll smother him in his sleep.” 

Noah laughs at him, runs a hand back through shoulder length dark hair and says, “I don’t think that’ll be a problem.”

“Why? You think she's not good enough for him?”

He feels completely gross saying something like that, but he loves his sister. His sister could date a super model if she wanted to. Grant wouldn’t let her, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be possible.

“Easy there,” Noah says as he places one hand gently over Grant’s chest. “It’s not that she’s not good enough, it’s that… well… put it this way: I think you and I are more his type than she is.”

Grant’s gaze slips to the kitchen briefly, catching sight of the way Cam’s back is outlined in his form-fitting outfit as he says, “Wait, is he gay?”

Noah shrugs. “I’m pretty sure.”

Grant turns to face Noah head-on. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just… trust me.”

“I’m gonna need a little more than _just trust me_ ,” Grant says. And he swears it’s just because of his sister - because he wants to be able to sleep comfortably at night knowing Cam isn’t sneaking into her room. It has nothing to do with the way Cam’s ass looks in his jeans when he asks, “What precisely about him makes you think that he’s gay?”

“Just stuff he’s said, I guess,” Noah replies with another shrug that fails to match the mischief in his eyes like he’s having way more fun with this conversation than he should be.

“Like what?”

“Like stuff.”

“Stuff isn’t very specific, ass hat,” Grant says, his voice rising a bit too high as he continues. “Did he say: Did you see what happened on _America’s Next Top Model_ or, like, I like to suck cock?”

Because his timing totally sucks, his last words are followed by the sound of someone clearing their throat a few feet away. And because his luck sucks as well, that someone is Cam.

“Um, your dad texted,” he says, the flush back again on his neck, but this time it’s trickling over his cheekbones as well. “He said he wouldn’t be home for dinner. Which is… um… ready. The food. Dinner. It’s ready.”

Cam turns on a dime and exits the room as quickly as possible, and Grant doesn’t even have time to indignantly refuse to be mortified before Noah is literally curled in a ball on the floor, laughing his ass off.

Sometimes, Grant really, _really_ hates him.

Dinner is nothing short of amazing. Cam whips up this pasta dish made all the more impressive by the fact that it took less than twenty minutes to cook. And for someone like Grant that has been living out of takeout containers for the past year, the meal is like food nirvana.

Not like he’s going to say any of that out loud, of course. He still can’t quite figure out the angle Cam is playing, assuming there’s an angle to be had. And so until he does, he’s keeping his own cards close to his chest.

He goes outside after dinner for another smoke, taking in the pinks and purples of a Washington sunset as the boat rocks lazily back and forth beneath him. But any calm he managed to accrue outside disappears as soon as he re-enters the house.

The three of them are in the kitchen this time, doing the dishes. Cam is rinsing them, Molls is putting them in the dishwasher, and Noah seems to be directing the entire process as Mushy laps at a plate of what appears to be leftovers. And he’s about to go off on a rant about feeding Mushy people food and making him fat before he realizes how hypocritical that would be and stops himself.

He goes to the media room instead, though _stalks_ there is probably a better way of putting it. He needs to shoot something, kill a virtual _something_. But just as he’s getting _Halo_ booted up, the gang comes barreling in.

“Move over,” Noah says as he shoves Grant down so he can have the corner of the couch nearest the door. Molls then takes the other corner before kicking her legs into him, shoving him practically into Noah’s lap in order to make room for Cam.

He’s not comfortable being this close to the usurper, nor is he comfortable with the company in general. But before he can voice his very valid opinion Noah is asking, “ _Super Smash Brothers_ or _Mario Kart_?”

“ _Mario Kart_!” Molls intones.

“Cam?”

“I’m cool with anything,” he replies quietly, politely, like he’s fucking Canadian or something. Which he is. But still.

“I’d prefer _Smash Brothers_ ,” Noah says, “which leaves the deciding vote to you.”

He nudges Grant at that. But despite the fact that he’d at least get to beat people up if he picked _Smash Brothers_ , he seems to be more pissed at Noah right now than anyone so he says, “ _Mario Kart_ ,” while looking Noah directly in the eye so he can know exactly what betrayal feels like.

When they get to the character screen, Cam immediately picks Wario. And the stereo surround collective gasp coming from the couch might be funny if _Cam hadn’t just picked Wario_.

“What did I do?” Cam asks because it’s clear, even to him, that something egregious just happened.

“It’s nothing,” Molls says sheepishly. “It’s just… that’s who Grant usually plays.”

“I’m so sorry,” Cam says so earnestly it makes Grant want to hurl again. “I can change characters. I just picked him at random anyway. Let me just-”

“It’s fine,” Grant interrupts because the last thing he wants is for the new kid to think he’s some kind of obsessive weirdo. “I can play a different character. What am I, twelve?”

That’s what he says. But what he thinks is, _Yes, yes I am twelve, and this guy just took my bed, my dog, my sister, my best friend, and now my fucking Wario_. 

Oh, it’s on.

Grant attacks this game of _Mario Kart_ like his life depends on every single race, pulling out every dirty trick he knows to beat not only Cam, but everyone else sitting on the couch.

Cam is easy. Clearly he hasn’t played much in the past, given his near perpetual spot in twelfth place and his penchant for receiving bullets every time he hits a cube. Noah and Molls are a bit more difficult to defeat, though, Molls especially because evidently Noah has been teaching her some moves in his absence.

“If you blue shell me, I will murder you,” Grant hisses as they hit a particularly difficult patch of Rainbow Road.

“You’re the one who chose this course,” Molls fires back. “You deserve everything you get.”

He’s unable to dodge the shell, which costs him two places and an even slimmer chance of a win. And so his voice is coated with genuine betrayal when he says, “I thought blood was supposed to trump all?”

“It doesn’t trump this,” she says as she steers her way easily past Noah’s Princess Peach into first place.

Grant _may_ be taking this competition a little too far, because a second later he’s leaning over Cam so he can yank Molls’ controller to the side.

It gives Noah the lead, but it takes it away from Molls, so it’s a toss up in the end. Plus, something about the way his arm presses into Cam’s chest when he does it feels… nice.

_Focus_.

“You can’t yank the controller from me!” Molls screeches.

Grant’s voice is just as high pitched when he replies, “Can and did!”

He almost adds a _bitch_ to the end of his statement before he remembers that he’s talking to his sister, not Noah.

The races only get worse from then on, devolving into even more childish insults and tactics. And at one point, it feels like he and Noah are actually going to come to blows over it. 

“I can’t believe you did that!” Grant yells.

“Me?” Noah replies. “You started it!”

“You were the one being a jackass!”

“Me?” he says again like a broken freaking record before Molls interrupts.

“You're both being jackasses.”

“Whose side are you on, Judas?” Grant asks, but she doesn’t respond with words, choosing to just flip him off instead. And that’s when Grant realizes that he might have pushed this a little too far. 

Damn, he missed them.

When they switch over to _Super Smash Brothers_ , Cam taps out, choosing instead to take a seat on the leather recliner next to the couch and just watch. It gives them all more room to spread out, which is nice, but something still sinks in his stomach when Cam leaves.

_It’s just Jennifer_ , he tells himself. It’s only been a day since the breakup, but he’s already missing the human contact of someone that isn’t related to him. And having _anyone_ but Molls or Noah that close would’ve felt nice.

He forgets the sensation pretty easily once the game starts up. And he’s so wrapped up in the idiocy of it that he’s actually super fucking annoyed when Noah’s cell rings.

“Shit, I forgot, I have a date,” he hisses as he looks down at the message in front of him.

“Dude, it’s like, past ten o’clock. How late are you?” Grant asks.

Noah just smiles crookedly at him and winks. “It’s not that kind of date.”

“Ugh, gross, leave now,” Grant replies, causing Noah to lean in and kiss him on the cheek in a way he knows Grant hates before he’s getting to his feet, dropping his controller on the couch in his wake.

“Having a party at my place tomorrow after the first pre season game,” he says before he leaves. “You’re coming, yeah?”

Grant shrugs. Translation: Of course you know I’m coming, you fucking moron, when have I ever skipped out on something for you?

Noah positively fucking beams. “Good. Bring Stella.”

Ah. Stella.

“I bet she fucking missed you,” Noah says in response to the way Grant sighs at her name.

“I sure as shit missed her,” he replies dreamily. But before he can go any further into his dewy stupidity, Molls asks, “When am I gonna be able to come to one of Noah’s parties?”

Noah says, “When you’re legal,” at the exact moment Grant chokes out the word, “Never.”

Noah laughs, winking at Molls before he heads out the door. And that’s also apparently her cue to leave as well.

“Got early morning practice,” she says teasingly as she ruffles Grant’s hair. “Need to get my beauty sleep.”

“No amount of sleep is gonna help you in the department,” he says with a grin. But she doesn’t even pretend to be offended before she’s off to bed.

And then there were two.

Grant isn’t entirely sure what to do alone in a room with Cam. He’s technically a part of the family now, but he’s also technically someone that Grant doesn’t even know. So even though everyone else he loves is cool with the guy, that doesn’t automatically make them cool as well.

For some reason he wants to try, though. Wants to push past the totally-not-jealousy he’d been feeling most of the night and make an effort. He’s going to be living with the guy, after all, and sort of working with him as well. So the sooner they make nice the sooner his life can slip back to the ease he’s looking for here.

It’s why he crosses over to the TV before Cam can leave, why he turns off the Wii and reaches for the X-Box controllers, the words, “Wanna play _Halo_?” as easy off his lips as he can make them.

Because he’s _trying_.

“I don’t know how,” Cam responds in a voice that sounds borderline disappointed.

Grant shrugs. “It’s easy. I can show you.”

He’s handing a controller to Cam at that, waiting for him to take the offering, which he does a second later. And Grant actually feels a wash of relief course through his veins when he does.

They both return to the couch, sitting in the middle together with a few polite inches separating their bodies. And it’s easy, teaching Cam how to play. Which makes complete and utter sense to Grant.

You don’t become an elite level hockey player without being born a quick study.

They spend what could either be minutes or hours killing aliens together. Grant is so wrapped up in the game, in fact, that time just ceases to have any sort of meaning to him. Which is why he’s actually a little surprised to see the numbers 2 _:23_ flashing on his phone when he finally looks down at it.

“Shit, I gotta be up in two and a half hours,” he groans as he sets the controller on his lap so he can stretch, reaching towards the sky as he lifts his legs onto the coffee table in front of him. “You got anything you need to be up for?”

Cam remains frozen where he is, controller still clutched in his fingers as he stares at a spot between his feet and says, “Not really. There’s an optional skate at ten, but most of the guys said that only the desperate rookies go to that one on the day of the first game.”

“Wouldn’t want to look desperate,” Grant replies, the words forming into a yawn as he grabs the sides of his head so he can crack his neck. “Damn I missed playing video games.”

Cam leans back at the switch in topic, his head finally turning to look Grant in the eye when he asks, “Why don’t you play anymore?”

Grant raises an eyebrow. “You’ve seen my room, right? I tend to leave most of my shit behind when I move. Just the essentials, you know? And video games aren’t exactly essential to modern living.”

Cam looks down at his lap and sighs. “I can relate.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade living out of a single suitcase.”

He looks up in time to see the scrunched up look Grant is giving him.

“My parents wanted me to have ‘worldly experience.’”

“Which means?”

“Which means,” Cam replies slowly. “I grew up on the road. Boarding schools and host families, mostly. One time, I spent an entire summer in Moscow because my parents thought I should learn the Russian style of play.”

Grant links his fingers behind his head and settles further into the couch. “That’s not so weird.”

Cam leans forward, resting his forearms along his thighs as he returns his gaze to the floor. “I was nine. They didn’t even fly over with me. They just hired some caretaker that ditched me at the airport once he got his free trip to Russia.”

“Shit,” Grant says, the word little more than a hissed breath. 

“Oh wait, it gets better,” Cam adds, tipping his head so that he’s looking back at Grant  “My host family got my arrival day mixed up.”

“No fucking way,” Grant says, placing his feet on the ground so he can mirror Cam’s pose.

“Yeah. I had to use my little dictionary to figure out how to get a taxi there. I was lucky, though. At least I had the address and a little money, otherwise I could have ended up in a gulag.”

“Gulag?” Grant asks as he butts his shoulder lightly into Cam’s. “You’re lucky you weren’t kidnapped and sold to the sex trade.”

Cam looks directly at him again, only this time there’s a faint smile on his face.

“I’ve seen documentaries,” Grant continues. “Your parents should be drawn and quartered.”

“Yeah, well, they suck. That’s not exactly news.”

“Well that’s an awfully healthy attitude you have there, my friend,” Grant says as he leans back into the cushions once again. 

“What doesn’t kill leaves scars of steel. Though burned up, still the ashes heal.”

Cam says the words so quietly Grant almost doesn’t hear them. They happen to be just loud enough, though, to stop his heart completely.

“What did you just say?” he asks, trying to forcibly stop the tremor in his voice.

“Oh, sorry,” Cam replies casually, as if he has yet to pick up on the way Grant’s entire body has gone as rigid as a corpse. “It’s from the stuff written on your ceiling. I have too much free time on my hands.”

Cam laughs.

Grant almost chokes.

“By the way, who wrote all that? I’ve been trying to find it online but I haven’t been able to.”

“I… I wrote it,” Grant says, grateful that his voice is still working now, given the way his throat is trying to close up on him.

Cam goes completely silent at Grant’s admission, his gaze penetrating in a way that makes Grant want to bolt from the room before the word, “Oh,” puffs softly from Cam’s lips.

“It’s really good,” he continues a few excruciating seconds later. “So is the art. The photos are amazing, but the drawings? They look real. Like, _really_ real. That one you did of Mushy looks like it’s going to jump right off the page.”

Cam stops there, staring at what is probably panic written across Grant’s face, given the way he’s feeling.

Grant’s reaction makes Cam shy, though, judging by the way he curls in on himself when he adds, “You’re good, is all I’m saying.”

“Thanks,” Grant replies even though what he wants to say is _please, if you don’t stop talking about me I’m probably gonna have to vomit._

“I mean it,” he says, not catching the hint. “You have real talent, Grant. You should submit it somewhere. You know, wherever people submit art. It’s _that_ good. The kind of thing that-”

“I need a smoke,” Grant cuts in because if he doesn’t leave the room right now he’s fairly certain he’s going to start hyperventilating. “Sorry. Just feeling a little nicotine craving.”

“Oh,” Cam says quietly. “Okay.”

“It was nice hanging with you, though,” Grant says as he gets quickly to his feet, adding the words, “Have… have a good night,” over his shoulder as he leaves the room.

“Yeah, you too,” Cam calls after him and then, Grant is mercifully free.

He has to stop himself from literally running out the back door. Once he’s in the boat, though, he starts to settle down. A little. Though it still takes him five drags on his cigarette to stop shaking.

He’s got no idea what the hell happened in there. It’s been years since Grant’s had anything even remotely resembling a panic attack, and the drugs he takes are supposed to help keep that shit away. But hearing Cam talk like that, about his poetry, about his drawings, about _him_ had just set him off for some reason.

It’s not important, that’s what he keeps reminding himself. It happened, it’s done, and now he’s here, having a cigarette like a normal night, that’s all this is. Except _normal_ is the last thing Grant feels right now.

He feels naked, exposed, raw and shredded at the edges. Only for some reason all he can think of in the middle of that mess is the way Cam had looked at him when he said the poems were his.

That pause, that stare, like he was starting to understand something, something _about Grant_. The way it had felt like it was cutting right through to marrow. Grant can’t get that fucking look out of his head.

It stays with him through his cigarette, and through the second one he has as well. It’s resting right in his gut when he grabs the bag he’d left on the deck when he went to get Molls from school, rides up the back of his throat as he heads down into the basement. It’s even there when he strips down to his boxers and crawls under the blankets on the couch, not even bothering to pull out the bed because he’s going to have to get up in two hours anyway.

The look is still there when he closes his eyes. And Grant would be willing to bet that it’ll still be there when he opens them again.


End file.
